“Could you not tell her there at the casino?”
“My God! Do you think for a moment I would risk your life doing something so foolish? I needed to speak to her alone.”
“So you went to her house in Cheapside?”
That she had been able to follow him to his secret house worried him greatly. Ariana was clearly not the same woman she once was. “Yes. After I saw you home, I went there.”
“Which you still have a key to.”
“What? No. She still puts the key in a tree knot on the maple. So I let myself in. When I realized she’d come home with the man, I followed them upstairs and waited for the fellow to receive what he wanted and go home. Which he eventually did.”
“With another man. Who was that?”
“There was someone else in there? Christ, I’m lucky I wasn’t shot then.” He sighed heavily and shook his head. “I deeply regret trying to do the right thing and warn her. Had I realized the man would have someone securing the house, I would have not have risked it. I just wanted to make certain she knew the danger she was in.”
“And did she?”
“She knows exactly who he is and all she cares about is his handsome face and rich wallet.” He shook his head. “I left relieved I had ceased to be mesmerized by her pretty face and ended our relationship years ago.” He met Ariana’s intense blue eyes.
“Then why did you stay for so long?”
“Most of my time in that house was spent hiding in an upstairs closet. Once I determined she had entered this foolish relationship because her greed exceeds her good sense, I left.”
“I watched the house for hours,” she said.
“I went out the back, just in case the man has the house watched. I certainly did not wish to die for what turned out to be a bloody waste of time.” He pulled her hand closer to him. “Ariana, I regret getting involved in Tilly’s misfortunes. And if it has caused me to lose you a second time, then it will reign as the worst mistake I’ve ever made.
Ariana ordered her driver to return to the Cheapside house and then faced Xavier, gently squeezing his hand. “I don’t want that to happen either. But life has made me less trusting than the young woman you once loved.”
“If it is your intention to wake Tilly and ask her to confirm our conversation, then I should forewarn you that she will not appreciate being woken and is prone to throwing things. However, rest assured, I will stand between you and whatever she throws.”
Ariana smiled. “I have no intention of waking her. I will be satisfied if the key is in the maple tree knot.”
Xavier’s mind raced through several scenarios before grimacing and pulling the key from his pocket and handed it to her. “I never put it back.”
“Why not?”
“I was so angry at the foolish woman when I left that I forgot about the key entirely. I might have remembered upon sight of the tree, only I went out the back door.” His anguished eyes met hers. “Please don’t let one act of chivalry destroy all that we might have.”
She returned to sit beside him and gave him a hug. “Poor Basilio, you have not changed at all. I remember the time you tried to help my cat from the tree and he clawed your face.”
“No good deed goes unpunished,” he muttered.
When they arrived at the house, she followed him to the maple tree and watched him slip the key into the hole. She even checked that he had actually placed it in the hole. Definitely not the girl of past.
Once back into the carriage, she leaned in and kissed him. Then pulled back. “So where have you been for all these hours?
“Walking. Wondering if I was behaving as foolishly as Tilly.” He cupped his hands about her lovely face. “Ariana, I love you, but you are married, and while you have not said a great deal about the fellow, your hunger to be truly loved is stronger than ever, so I must assume he is not lovable or capable of love.”
She met his gaze. “He is not.”
Xavier kissed each of her eyelids, forcing her to stop studying him with those intense blue eyes. “Does he hurt you?”
“Not for years. Not since I learned to be strong.”
Xavier smiled. “You are stronger. The woman you are now would never be forced into marrying a man she did not love.”
“No, I would not. I no longer allow other people to control what I do.” She paused and studied him. “That doesn’t alarm you.”
“I lost you because you could not thwart your father. That you’ve acquired the strength you lacked back then only impresses me. I thought you fabulous then but now you are pure perfection.”
She rested happily in his arms. “Come home with me,” she purred.
“Ariana, I strongly doubt your husband will welcome me with open arms. More likely he’d put a bullet or two in me.”
“No. He will not interfere. I am in charge now. He follows my orders.”
Damn it all, they had been watching the wrong person. Ariana has been their trouble all these years.
She pulled back. “I have shocked you. You claimed you could admire a strong woman, but when faced with the reality of my words, you have become appalled.”
“Your strength is not what has me worried. It is your assessment of your husband that I find inconceivable. He may allow you to hold the upper hand in private, but I have not seen that in public.”
“No…in public I behave as the obedient, but neglected wife.”
“So he can retain the illusion of power and his pride. However, what you are suggesting will strip both away and I guarantee you that a man with his inflated ego will not endure such a humiliation. He will kill us both before he allows you to take all that is dear away from him.”
She stared at him several long minutes as she considered the matter. “You may be right.” She ordered her driver to his hotel. “We will need to proceed with caution. This man who saw us together…will he be a problem?”
“I doubt it, but if he does become such, he will go to you first.”
“For extortion, you mean.”
“Yes. But it is likely he knows nothing about you, so I think our secret remains secure.”
“And you could live with a hidden love?”
“It is far better than I had two days ago.” He then pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply.
Xavier was worried. If he didn’t play this hand carefully, Ariana would have her husband killed and ‘those above’ would insist he marry Ariana so they could identify and destroy the entire spy ring. However, neither he nor Vic would survive such a scenario. As he discovered tonight, Vic was more important to him than even England. He would not hurt her for the world.
Chapter 10
If Vic thought she’d heard the last word for running off without Casey and Fagan, the moment she arrived for breakfast proved her wrong. First, Gregory gave her a thorough scolding over her foolishness, her lack of consideration for those who cared about her welfare, and then pontificated for a very long time on how close Casey and Fagan had come to losing their jobs and how quickly their good lives would have turned to ones of misery.
Then Casey and Fagan were brought in so she could apologize and assure them it would never, ever, happen again. She sincerely apologized but hedged on the promise. Truth was, it wasn’t a promise she could make.
By their narrowed eyes, she feared both had noticed the door she had left open for abandoning them in the future.
“I hope you don’t require the carriage today, because the horses are very tired,” Casey warned.
She almost asked from what. After all the horses did nothing but stand in front of Samson’s mansion for twelve hours. However, given their current resentment, such a response might cause them to quit their wonderful jobs, suddenly preferring to starve in the street.
“I’ll probably be helping Ben on his cases today. If we need a carriage, I’ll ask Davy.”
“Davy is sick with a cold,” Gregory stated.
“Then I’ll hire a cab,” she stated in exasperation and storm
ed to Tubs’ room. She failed to knock, thus when she opened the door, he and Sara were in an intimate embrace.
She smiled at the sight of pure love. Thank God she had undone Xavier’s ridiculous rule so these two fabulous people, who both believed no one would ever want them, could find true love with each other and enjoy the life they never hoped to have.
She was glad to see Tubs on top. It meant his arms were getting their strength back.
Suddenly, someone gripped her ear and yanked her from the room, closing the door behind them. “Victor, have you no sense of propriety?” Gregory whisper-screamed at her. “You do not just barge in on people without knocking.”
“How do you know that I didn’t knock?”
Gregory gripped the bridge of his nose and remained silent for nearly a minute. Once he calmed to the level of seething rage, he spoke. “Had you knocked, they would have told you to wait or come back later. They certainly would not have continued their current occupation if they had given you permission to enter.”
“That only means they didn’t hear me knock, not that I didn’t do so,” she challenged.
Gregory’s eyebrows rose to nearly his hairline. “It does not matter. Until you are invited in, you should not have opened the door, and under no circumstances should you have stood and watched!”
He had a point. “I was just so happy for them. Neither thought anyone would ever want them, and then they fell in love, and now they have everything they could want. Getting them together is one of the best things I’ve done.”
For some reason, that explanation calmed her butler-parent and he sighed. “Perhaps you can give them more time to appreciate your extraordinary efforts to bring them together and attend Ben. He evidently requires your assistance. But let me be clear. You will not hire a cab today. Do you understand me?”
She almost asked him if he recalled he was her butler, but she couldn’t. Asking that was as good as telling him she was firing him from being her father, and she loved having a father, having lost her real parents in a ship wreck when she was eight.
“I won’t hire a cab,” she promised.
She headed to the office across the street. Before crossing the road she’d seen the carriage further down the road, she just hadn’t realized how fast it was going. The driver would have run her down had she not sensed danger and thrown herself onto the sidewalk.
When Vic heard the bastard cursing her a blue streak she lost her temper. She stood up and yelled back, “Then slow down, you sorry excuse of a driver.”
To her shock and concern, the driver pulled up the carriage and started to climb down. She needed to run either home, where Gregory would no doubt forbid her from crossing roads without someone holding her hand, or to Ben who would be worthless unless he happened to have his gun ready to use.
She was tempted to try Ben, because she did not want another scolding or further restrictions placed upon her, but her gut told her all the boy would have in his hand is a bunch of cheap jewelry. So she headed straight to the barn, where she prayed Casey and Fagan would be sulking.
Midway to the barn, a new worry came to mind. What if they were so mad that they failed to come to her rescue? They might decide a thrashing would be fair compensation for deserting them.
“Incoming trouble,” she yelled as she crashed through the barn door.
They had been laying new hay for the horses and froze in shock at her arrival. She ignored their pointed pitchforks and ran between them as she dived behind a stack of hay.
A moment later, Casey gave someone a warning. “Hold up. This is private property.”
“I’ve no issue with you. I’m after the kid.”
“What’d he do?” Casey asked with a heavy sigh as if ‘the kid’ was nothing but endless trouble.
She almost popped her head up to complain about his tone, but the driver might very well have a gun. She could see the backs of Casey and Fagan. Despite their annoyance with her, they had closed ranks, protecting her from the worse driver in England. She smiled to see, besides the pointy pitchforks, Casey wore a gun in his back holster.
Fagan stepped in close to Casey and a moment later, the gun was missing from the holster.
The angry man yelled. “He damn near caused me to wreck my carriage, jumping out in front of me.”
She was so put out by his lie, she almost jumped up to contest his claim, but her gut told her to stay hidden. However, she was not about to let his outrageous lie remain uncontested.
“I stepped off the side walk, not jumped. And if you had been driving a reasonable speed, I would have made it across the street before you even passed me. And the reason you almost crashed your carriage is because you are a crappy driver. I hope your master is in that carriage and he fires your bloody ass, because you are a danger to society.”
Vic hated that she had to make her speech hiding behind a hay stack. But her gut told her this guy had a gun. Giving that thought a bit more consideration, she scurried two haystacks down.
“Give me the kid and I’ll be gone,” the man snapped.
“Not a chance,” Casey replied. “However, if you turn around and leave now, nobody has to get hurt.”
A moment later, the air filled with the explosion of guns, then Casey called out. “Vic, are you shot?”
Vic stood up from her haystack. “No, I’m fine.”
“Oh, thank God,” he stated and collapsed on the haystack she had initially hid behind. Now concerned he was shot, she ran to him and frisked his chest.
“What has happened now?” Gregory demanded as he entered the barn and stared at the dead man on the floor. He frowned at Vic, then focused on Casey. “Have you been shot? Do you need a doctor?”
“I’m fine,” he stated, pushing Vic away. “Vic came running in declaring incoming trouble. We were putting down fresh hay so our main guns were hung up in the closet. When the guy entered, we had pitch forks and to all appearances, he just had an ill-temper. I tried to talk him down, but Vic insisted on scolding him for his bad driving. I offered to let him leave with no one getting hurt, which he should have taken given our pitch forks were pointed at him.”
Fagan jumped in. “Which meant he had a gun. Fortunately, Casey was wearing his back holster gun, so I sided up to him and was able to take it without the guy realizing I was now armed. I was waiting for him to reach in his jacket to draw a gun, but he never did. The first thing I saw was him firing into the haystack where Vic had been. I shot to kill, but had Vic not had the sense to move away from that haystack right after he spoke, this might have ended very badly.”
“But it didn’t,” Vic stated. “And now the streets are a great deal safer. I guarantee you that I’m not the first person this fellow has tried to kill. And he damn near ran over me to begin with.” She then looked at Gregory. “This is not my fault.”
“I will call Inspector Stone and let him know,” Gregory stated and left the barn.
Vic frowned at Fagan. “Did you have to mention my rebuttal?” she asked.
“No. Did you have to leave us behind when you went to the casino?”
“I was trying to keep you out of trouble,” she grumbled.
“How’s that?” Casey challenged.
“If I convinced you that I’d be safe with Samson watching over me, which I would be, given the casino is his and he has a great deal of muscle working there, I was afraid despite my safety, Gregory would not agree and try to fire you for not following his strict guidelines of where I could and could not go. However, if I went around you in a way you could not expect, then Gregory wouldn’t try to fire you and I wouldn’t have to unfire you, because you do not work for Gregory, you work for me…and Xavier.” She had to include Xavier since Fagan was his future driver.
She stared at them. “I would never let anyone fire you. You both have a job as long as you want it. I just prefer not fighting over who can and cannot fire my people, so I’d rather Gregory be mad at me than you. He would never fire me.”
Tha
t made them both laugh softly. “That would be something, dismissing the master of the house,” Fagan said.
Casey smiled at Vic. “Thank you for explaining yourself. Glad you told us in private, because I don’t think Gregory would have liked that explanation at all.”
“What explanation?” Gregory demanded as he entered the room.
“Why I had moved to a new haystack. I was planning to hit the guy in the head with something…only all I could find was hay.”
Both Fagan and Casey burst into laughter.
“That is hardly amusing!” Gregory chided them. “Nor is this a time for humor. A man has been killed. When the police arrive, there should be no laughter, mirth, or smiles. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
Both men sobered and nodded.
“Vic, Tubs is demanding to see you.”
“Oh, he probably heard the gun shots.” She rushed from the barn, into the house and nearly collided with Tubs, who was pushing his iron walker down the hall.
“Vic, what happened?” he demanded.
“I was nearly run over by a reckless driver, so I declared him such. Then he stopped his carriage and ran after me, so I headed to the barn, and hid while Casey and Fagan met him with pitchforks. Instead of leaving, he pulled a gun and Fagan shot him.”
Tubs frowned. “I think you left out a few details. If Fagan had a pitch fork, where’d the gun come from?”
She clarified the detail, which satisfied him. He continued forward to the barn, so she followed. The exercise would probably be good for him.
When he asked why Fagan hadn’t shot first, she replied, “He said he didn’t see him draw a gun. But when the guy shot the haystack, Fagan shot him twice in the head.”
“For shooting a haystack?” Tub challenged.
“I was mouthing off behind that haystack a few minutes before,” she admitted.
The CrimeLords' War (The Adventures of Xavier & Vic Book 7) Page 8